Nothing threatens German democracy more than our rights to free expression and assembly. If our constitutional order is to survive, our constitutional freedoms must be abridged.
(this pinned comment is all the advertisement the policy is ever going to get, so if you disagree with anything in there or have criticisms please let me know here.)
I experienced the Covid Panic in the United States of America. On the West Coast, Hawaii, and a few other states, the Manzanar camps for issei, including those who had gained legal citizenship, and culpably for nissei, have as much prominence in school-child history lessons as does slavery and segregation. In the midwest, it's the Trail of Tears, and broken treaties with the Amerindian tribes and nations instead.
Had it not been so terrible, it would have been funny: seeing friends and colleagues, including one ex-Marine*, go all-in on violating the civil rights of citizens to bodily autonomy. From summoning police to remove people who had refused the experimental modified RNA genetic therapy drug, to arresting a man and his toddler from an empty public park, to cheering on the creation of "covid camps" for the insufficiently compliant... It was eye-opening and funny.
I know, I know, you are asking "what is the funny part?" The funny part is these are the self-same Democrats who were most loudly vocal in their excoriation of Manzanar, internments, segregation, and abuse of Nissei civil rights during the WW2 crisis; these friends who believed themselves vastly superior to the deplorables who participated, or were just silent, in early 2020 regarding what they called "Asian Hate".
Yes! They proved that they would, in fact, be the ones volunteering to shove the nissei onto animal-transport trains or act as prison guards for the camps.
Funny old world, isn't it?
Putting it here, since I just read your comments policy. Isn't it interesting how well protectors of the right to freedom of speech and expression understand the need to comprehensively silence the speech that troubles them? We get them here in the U.S. Often, hilariously, from the GDR. I watched an interview 10 years ago with a bright young thing explaining so earnestly why the GDR had even free-er speech than the U.S.! She's probably working in one of your ministries now.
*Marines swear an oath to God that they will uphold and defend the constitution of the U.S. against all enemies foreign and domestic. So yes: Ex.
**Not the Bureau of Land Management, which also has issues, boy howdy.
I find it amusing that any German would claim more speech rights than in the US. Sure buddy. Why don't you start up a certain political party that was active during the 1930s until 1945, display their symbols, or publish their literature? And then tell me how much freedom of the press or speech you have in Germany.
"The funny part is these are the self-same Democrats who were most loudly vocal in their excoriation of Manzanar, internments, segregation, and abuse of Nissei civil rights during the WW2 crisis"
The funnier part is that these same Democrats have conveniently repressed their memories that the internment of the Asians was committed by a Democrat administration; the institution of Negro slavery was propagated by Democrat states; that the (re)segregation of the US government service and Armed Forces prior to WWI was the brainchild policy of a Democrat president; and that Jim Crow was the law of exclusively Democrat-controlled legislatures. They wail that the Republican Party -- the party of Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves -- is actually the racist party. They rant on about "Our Democracy," but just engineered a successful coup against an elected president and the nomination of a replacement candidate without a single citizen vote being cast. It is a political party inspired by the Bizarro World, by way of the Twilight Zone.
I’ve been pretty lucky, my commentariat is generally well-behaved, thoughtful and literate, so I haven’t had to do much moderation.
Moderation is necessary, however, because it only takes one or two persistent bad actors to ruin an entire discussion thread. Either you set and enforce some basic rules – and yes, ban people when appropriate – or other people will set and enforce their own rules and make discussing things impossible. Strictly speaking, this may be “censorship,” but if that’s the case then we must remember that there’s no “no-censorship” option. In a totally unmoderated comment section, dominated by spam and trolls, other forces get to shout down useful contributors and impose their own kind of “censorship.”
But, I am not sure banning commenters on a blog really counts as “censorship.” For me, this really depends on the size of the platform. If eugyppius comment threads were the premier discussion forum on the internet, with hundreds of millions of contributors, then being banned would significantly limit one’s ability to freely express himself. I am microscopic compared to that; a ban from my comment threads doesn’t meaningfully impact anybody’s freedom of expression, as they’re free to comment elsewhere, write their own blog, shoot angry Notes at me, etc.
Of course. Censorship in a technical sense is always required. To take an analogy from St. Thomas on political freedom, it is good for men to have room for wide and open debate and freedom of choice, being in their natures and being conducive to finding the truth, but not where it results in a breach of peace or serves only vices. We are given freedom so we can do the right thing, so to speak.
There are lots of "comments" that aren't really comments in the proper sense. They don't contribute to any dialogue. They may be trolling, spam, long-winded unreadable nonsense, and so on. I see no issue with "censoring" such things. We have to have standards.
Often people misidentify our political problem of censoring speech as being based in the idea of censorship being wrong or immoral. No, the problem arises because it's imposed by a monopoly state or its many "private" govermentalities. A good society (preferably Hoppean) will always have varying levels of censorship, adjusted for time/place and circumstance, as imposed by fathers and adults using good sense and with community feedback and incentives in place.
Eugyppius is entirely within his rights to moderate HIS forum. He "owns" it and sets the rules. He's probably under various legal constraints to, that would vary by nation. For example, here in the USA we have greater freedom of speech than many nations. There are certain topics (which I won't mention specifically, lest I draw the attention of the authorities*) that Americans are free to discuss or publish, that would get you fined or jailed in Germany and quite a few other nations these days. It's worth mentioning that even here in the US, the speaker of unapproved thought likely would end up (as appropriate) banned from all social media, fired from his job or demoted at the least, his books disappeared off Amazon, have his banking services discontinued, or in some cases be persecuted by government agencies to the point of bankruptcy even though he or his corporation had not been accused of any crime. But at least he won't end up in a prison cell.
*This is supposedly a Chinese curse: “May you come to the attention of the authorities.” Much like the more general “May you live in interesting times.” Surely the latter is already true for most of us, and to the best of my knowledge I haven’t pissed off any Chinese and you probably haven’t either.
As I sometimes point out, whenever I comment and mention bad things here (bad due to policy, politics and such, example below), I am technically committing a crime that could land me in prison.
Naturally, mentioning that law to foreigners is breaking that law. . .
Example: our agency for civil preparedness today announced their latest advice for how to deal with a supply/goods crisis, namely food: "Go into the forests and forage".
"Government is a gang, but not merely as meritorious as a private gang because it claims legal legitimacy. It pillages and uses violence but under the cover of law, and seeks legitimacy not through competition but through the myth of the social contract."
- Jeffrey Tucker
We are at a stage in history where The Law itself has become an instrument of illegality...AGAIN.
I won't live that long, but I wonder what history books (or files) will say 100 years from now of what we live through. We know the books now are almost completely filled with lies...
I read a completely fabricated account of a certain 'first nation' that alleged to have occupied an area forever according to how their history story telling works. But we know this tribe was from the US and moved into the area in the 19th Century because there are accounts of them arriving in history books, probably the same ones libraries and schools are throwing out. This "alternative knowing" was the basis of a land claim, suddenly it was 'unceded' territory. However my own ancestors from Ireland lived there and until recently you could find gravestones with their names/dates and others from the small community together with foundations of their homesteads from the 18th century. That was ignored, but the land claim and fabricated history of the first natoin has found its way to wikipedia and now gov. canada has accepted this narrative as truth and offered the land to this tribe for whatever reason. So history is being re-written, correct.
Many of the past books are far more truthful than books now. Anything before the 20th century had a much wider shared social reality it had to go through in order to lie. Now people are in their isolated social bubbles and will believe anything.
Funny, there many books that I'd like to rid myself of because they take up space. I will not do that now after experiencing the last decade and all the joy has wrought.
Otherwise beautiful countries to live in except the population growth mayhem, in urban centres but also their recreational practices. They are practising some truly disgusting approaches to garbage and sewage management in pristine recreational areas.
Just had my Instagram account suspended for 60 days for posting a comment about if we confiscated all the wealth of all the billionaires in the United States we could fund the country for a about 8 months and they said I didn't have enough context ( according to the independent "fact checkers") so my account is suspended for 60 days. Probably a little too close to the truth for them to be able to tolerate.
Politicians speak daily on social media of confiscating everyone's wealth. Meta (run by politicians and the IC) doesn't have a problem with that.
Last week Instagram temporarily banned me from "liking" any more posts because I'd hearted too many in some unspecified time period. I've never been penalized for being *too positive* before.
Probably because you were of by a factor of four. I saw the study and the country could only be funded for 8 weeks.
But, it gets worse. If all their wealth were to be confiscated, the following year, they would be paying what for taxes? So confiscation all their wealth could only be done...............once.
"It always helps when they can change and manipulate the law and the narrative at will to suit themselves."
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Right? Here let me wet your beak. I think Rand nails it with this one.
"When you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice-You may know that your society is doomed."
Atlas Shrugged is set in a depressingly realistic world, if one neglects a few fantasy elements:
(1) Strip out the science fiction technology. There are no invisibility screens, miracle alloys or free power sources, to name but three.
(2) [Most important] In the real world, not all evil people are stupid and incompetent toadies. The good don't have super-human intelligence or other powers.
Unfortunately, without the science fiction, Atlas Shrugged doesn't work. Unless the productive libertarians can hide themselves in a Galt's Gulch where they literally cannot be found, and control their secret by invitation only, the human locusts will simply attack and reduce them same as they did in the outer world. Which brings up the problem of how to raise families (naturally-rebellious children who will therefore be good little Marxists) inside the enclave without losing your entire opsec.
The state has always been the criminal gang that claims a monopoly of force, because it is anointed by God, or Democracy, or whatever. True law exists independent of the state; it is a spontaneous expression of society. What we have today is legislation, not Law. And of course it serves the interests of the rulers, not the people.
It always has been, but the post-war vigilance of the citizens kept it at bay, plus the rising economy meant those in power didn't have to grab as much and could let some trinkets to the peasants. Now it's another story...
Yes, the but the people who are truly in power are invisible. They are not politicians. Politicians simply do their bidding, because of bribes, extortions, blackmail and threats. All three branches of government are subject to the hidden powers.
Ireland is running a close second IMO, both are jackbooting themselves into totalitarian nightmares. UK too. It’s all looking particularly ugly for regular people everywhere.
I am beginning to think that the zombies are meant when Schwab says, you will own nothing and be happy. They own no brain cells and live on happily ever after, without even noticing that the carpet has been pulled from under their feet
Schwab is as wiley and discrete as certain adherents of a certain ideology who were much concerned with finally ending what they perceived as a chronic, difficult problem
Many are happy with being a zombie because they don't see any of the changes happening to only "bad guys" will impact THEM. They do not realize that they are in a process that will result in them being classified as one of the 'bad guys'. It's not until people feel the pain that they get they are under attack. Stupid. I know too many of them
The United States saved from execution by the Nuremburg tribunals, and imported to the US, all the important Nazi scientists, under a program known as Operation Paperclip. Those Nazi scientists developed, while in the United States, after WWII, the directed energy weapons systems and the other satanic technology which have made today's world a torture chamber for millions of innocent people.
The issue of mass immigration and displacement of the native population has become so incendiary that in Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics are marching together in protest against it...
Here in Canada, people whose temporary student visas have expired are protesting even though they are 50-year-old male head of families —- its the injustice of not being given work permits.
Everything you described is in keeping with the following excerpt from a 1950's era textbook wherein half a page was devoted to how to overthrow a democracy.
I am a student of Law whose age is 85. My first year of college was 68
years ago. One class I took was political science. A half page of my
textbook essentially outlined a few steps to overturn a democracy.
1. Divide the nation philosophically.
2. Forment racial strife.
3. Cause distrust of police authority.
4. Swarm the Nation’s borders indiscriminately and unconstitutionally.
5. Engender the military strength to weaken it.
6. Overburden citizens with more unfair taxation.
7. Encourage civil rioting and discourage accountability for all crime.
8. Control all balloting.
9. Control all media.
What was printed in 1954 as a possible diabolic nightmare has become
an emerging reality. I hope that Americans will unite enough to pen a good finish.
Go dwelling.
Keith M. Alber
California
Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Whilst I agree with the point you are making, let me say this:
Churchill is a truly terrible person to cite, and I don't say that for any "woke" reasons. He was wholly owned by bankers, did their warmongering bidding in all things, and made the deals which enriched the U.S. and crippled Britain. He was the Boris Johnson of his time, let that parallel truly sink in.
Although Churchill did not originate the phrase my understanding is he used the phrase. I posted the original comment that I saw in another substack article in 2022 complete with the Churchill reference. I checked the steps to overturn a democracy and the fact checkers agree it is a legitimate story. I have not yet found the textbook name that the excerpt came from.
As noted above I have not found a reference to the textbook yet. I still look for it when time and inclination permit. I have seen a photocopy published of the page in question but no details on the book title and author.
I’m just marveling at how the article and police agree, he was arrested to stop him in advance of committing a crime. What crime is that? Speaking? How do they know in advance? This is genuinely the thought police. will this get appealed? You can arrest absolutely anybody using this premise.
they could potentially use this authority to stop people from voting, to stop entire parties from holding political rallies, to force shop-owners out of business. it's totally crazy.
eugyppius, it resembles the National Socialism of the 1930s, does it not? So I disagree with your description of 'crazy'. Not so; we've seen this before, and it did not end well. There were logical and inevitable reasons why Germany ended up as a ruined wasteland in May 1945. So, not crazy, and that makes it worse.
We already have 'pre-crime' laws all over the shop. You can be prosecuted if you innocently carry the wrong sort of knife, even if it's in your bag. Yes, there is a law that states what sort of knife you are permitted to carry, and what is illegal, unless you have 'good reason'. However, the point is that you do not have to have threatened or even harmed someone, so innocent people can be criminalised, whilst genuine criminals simply ignore the law anyway.
This recent preventative speech/presence ban is merely an extension of the same principle. Attack the easy (and often artificial) targets, and ignore the real problem as it's actually difficult to deal with.
And it appears that a sizable portion of the German population (half?) are perfectly fine with their government arresting people for crimes they *might* commit? How do those people convince themselves that they’re “the good guys”?
Despite all the noise, hysteria and bullshit surrounding Sellner, I am yet to find a single 'outrageous' public utterance authored by him.
It reminds me of JK Rowling, who is forever accused of 'transphobia' and the omnipresent spectre of 'hate', but for which no evidence can be presented.
Post-war Germany put its full energies into creating a perfect, liberal society of Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit, but has collapsed in on itself under the weight on contradictory ideological shibboleths.
I reluctantly disagree with some of Sellner's tactics, but his rhetoric is so relentlessly moderate they have to make up stories about him to stir up all this outrage.
If the German people were sane, and not brainwashed and pathologically self-loathing, Seller would be nothing notable because he would represent the common-sense democratic majority, and there wouldn't be multiple millions of people in your country brought there by dictatorial whim and enforced by tyrannical order.
The Rowling reference is spot on. For those in the "protected classes," it is never enough to just be friendly and unbiased toward them. They demand you be virulently anti-everything that they label as oppressing them, even if that is yourself.
I think what we have failed to understand is how all this is perfectly normal. In every generation governments whip up hysterias against the unregenerate individual/disfavored political views. Some of the more traditionalists here ought to read MartyrMade's descriptions of what was done to believing professing Christians by the Spanish Inquisition that wasn't entirely sure if every little corner of their souls was approvedly pure.
What always does surprise me is the astonishing moral and physical courage of a few people in every generation who endure things that others in their place would not endure, because those few have an integrity that no human language can really explicate.
In what era of human history has anyone ever been allowed to speak absolutely freely and truly of their views?
We just never learn that the truly abnormal is to have guts and stick to them.
What appears to be happening, is a reversion on the part of the state to a historical repressive norm, while everybody simultaneously pretends this isn't happening and continues to employ the legal forms and vocabulary of a prior anomalous era – where peace, prosperity and a kind of consensus society allowed different norms to prevail for a little while.
There's always only a brief moment in any civilization when ordinary people are able to master the worst of human nature and pull something true and beautiful and of enduring value out of themselves that is a rebuke to what we usually do.
Despite the idiotic clumsiness of what JD Vance recently said, it happens to be true that to become a parent is the test of any person's capacities; those who meet that test, who are able to master themselves during a toddler's tantrums, rather than rolling right down in the mud with their child, is a maturing experience that nothing else is comparable to. Very few people will ever be tested on a battlefield or in surreptitious resistance movements, so skipping the experience of raising a child well condemns people to remain always somewhat immature themselves.
"... everybody simultaneously pretends this isn't happening ..." This is what the majority of the weak GOP in the U.S. does. Sadly, many aren't even pretending; they actually don't see it.
The Fellowship of SubstackLand where so many of us have been fortunate to find enough backyards to relievedly plunk our lawn chairs down in and have actual exchange of ideas.
I agree that substituting “the 1%” makes more sense than “democracy”, but the problem is that it’s not really about “the 1%”, even though it looks that way.
Almost every western country that is tightening the screws on its population currently is controlled by a left-wing, globalist government.
The people that they are oppressing are primarily socially conservative or even somewhat libertarian leaning, and who are opposed to mass 3rd world immigration into their respective countries. And they mostly support individual rights as opposed to government coercion.
Instead of saving “our democracy “, what these oppressive governments are really trying to save is their social(ist) agenda and their hold on power.
Entirely true. Only socialist states have to build walls to keep their own populations imprisioned and controlled. Suspension of freedom to travel is usually the very first element suppressed by socialism, right before the suppression of freedom of speech and state control of all forms of mass media.
Hayek in his famous "The Road to Serfdom" (1944) writes about an insurmountable problem of socialist* policies: While the ends might be highly desirable (e.g. abolish hunger, illness, unemployment, whatever) the means, necessary steps to actually achieve those goals (are they even achievable?) would be, or at least should be, repellent to anyone who claims to value the rights of the individual.
*Note there are various “flavors” of socialism. For example, 1970s Sweden and Stalin's Soviet Union both had many elements of "socialism" but most people would have a marked preference for the former over the latter!
I think it’s a mistake to blame the problem on mere socialism. Underneath is the universal human desire to dominate and control, whatever the ideological excuse. No matter what the system calls itself, eventually the power-hungry scum gain full control and seek to destroy all possible opposition.
I agree that the desire is universal but socialism usually seems to attract and reward the worst of the worst.
I think that’s because the ideology itself is based on class envy and theft(redistribution of wealth), has little respect for individual liberty, and it also generally denigrates religion.
People who acquire the power to take stuff from one group and give it to others (after they get their cut), with no religious scruples, tend to lack a natural empathy towards their victims.
And that is why (with the possible exception of a few Nordic countries) socialism has been a disaster wherever it’s been tried……and it’s left a death toll in the hundreds of millions .
Hayek ("The Road to Serfdom") emphasizes the role of the individual citizen vs. the managerial state. This is a feature in any government, not just “socialist.” It’s a question of degree, of tradeoffs: What freedoms does the individual have? What powers does the bureaucrat, the state planner, have? For example: In a relatively “free” society, a citizen might work at nearly any type of job, but the offering of that job is basically a private agreement between an employer and the worker. It's NOT the government's problem if he can't find work; he has no "right" to a specific job, in fact, to any job at all. In a planned economy, the Ministry of Labor will assign you a job and you will take it “or else.” It’s wasn’t only Communist nations that did that either. The UK AFTER WW II flirted extensively with socialism; they briefly had a law that would have allowed the government to assign nearly anyone to any job, on pains of imprisonment if they refused.
Your example of the postwar UK flirting “extensively with socialism “, even imposing a law assigning jobs on pain of imprisonment is further evidence that socialism itself is a much more invasive and totalitarian form of government than any other.
You are correct that it’s a trade off, but socialism requires much more force (or the threat of force) than other forms of government in order for it to “work “.
People don’t voluntarily give up their stuff, it has to be taken from them….and that requires force.
"socialism itself is a much more invasive and totalitarian form of government than any other."
...Second Law of Thermodynamics.
...You can't keep locusts out, and if you move they just follow you.
Socialism is pervasive because it is a low energy state, high entropy.
Entrepreneurship is high energy -- human progress by reversing (battling) entropy.
Living by putting your hands in each others' pockets is passive, high entropy.
Musk hustles, he doesn't sit back on his ass and eat bonbons.
La'Quishraniqua? Maybe not so much.
The productive create their own value and wealth; the parasites need to skim some of it off them.
Socialism shows up everywhere, because it's the system the "gypsies, tramps, and thieves" need to survive. And they always have their own political party, no matter where you go, same as the medieval societies never lacked for beggars both real and fake.
The vast majority of plain old conservatives don’t believe in this authoritarian stuff.
The current trend towards authoritarianism, at least in the US, is a globalist/leftist phenomenon (which used to be called “international socialism “).
There are big corporations, media, and other private sector organizations involved, but they are run by people with the same agenda.
The only thing that can save democracy at this point in the great and very democratic state of Germany is to eliminate the other political parties, let the state exert full control - over information, activities of citizens, and corporations - and, centralize all power, preferably in a single individual who can act as a trustee with full support of the government to direct the democracy according to its own best interest. Oh, and it would be very democratic to put CJ Hopkins in jail for his gross misunderstanding of democracy.
Dark days...Hitler abolished the mandatory vaccination laws, and thought it should be a matter of personal choice...He'd be arrested today as a dangerous freedom fighter....
“ All they need to do is claim these individuals have the potential to commit a criminal offence. They don’t need to have a good reason; they can just show up at your pub or your apartment and demand that you leave.”
The actions of these so-called protectors of democracy are far more reminiscent of the Third Reich than anything that AfD and others on the political right have done or said.
I hope and pray that overplaying their hand so often will wake the good people of Germany up.
This is an important concept which I try to follow.
It's an interesting exercise to apply to both Trump and Biden*, but can I get my liberal friends to consider it? It's difficult. They do fall strangely mute when I point out the authoritarianism of things like vaccine mandates.
* Not enough RECENT data points yet for Harris on either the Do or Say fronts. She appears to be running solely on identity politics. Glenn Greenwald and Lee Fang pointed out that her campaign website does not have a single policy statement, which apparently is SOP in California politics.
There’s plenty of data points on Harris, only the state “sponsored” US media suppress most of it… Peter Schweizer covered her in his 2020 book “Profiles in Corruption” - not just her Willie Brown phase, but her indebtedness to unions and her corruption as CA AG, when she did not recuse herself from cases with involvement by her husband’s law firm. As far as authoritarianism is concerned she was recorded gloating about her efforts to incarcerate parents with truant children. While one might not disagree that truancy is undesirable there is something disturbing about Harris’ shallow delight at her own power when CA AG…
Of course it's physical storage, but as a computer consultant I find it very helpful to use the storage-in-the-sky metaphor when attempting to explain to the technically unsophisticated how things work. Before the "cloud" metaphor was invented, I would try to explain about servers and people's eyes would cross.
With your Harris example, unfortunately, she probably wasn't speaking metaphorically 😐
As another computer consultant I find the exact opposite -- the less people think of it as "magic", the fewer surprises they will suffer. I prefer the message on a T-shirt I bought online from someone I now forget:
"There's no 'Cloud' -- it's just someone else's computer"
Harris is a puppet which is why she was "Chosen" to succeed Biden. It would be an interesting research project to figure out what the Deep State might have on her as blackmail.
Why would they need blackmail? She has not remotely got any of the talents, abilities, or experience to fulfill her recent positions, so why would "they" need anything more than "remember you did nothing to get where you are today; we can unmake you as quickly as we made you"?
I'm becoming a fan of Lionel Shriver's acerbic pen. She's written article titled "Will the real Kamala Harris please stand up?" https://archive.li/49yxO.
"The next do-over will erase Harris’s political record. She’ll be transformed from the formerly second-most left-wing member of the Senate to a safe, sensible, law-and-order centrist. Magically, she’ll never have advocated defunding the police, abolishing private health insurance, fundraising bail for violent Antifa rioters, elevating anti-meritocratic equal-outcomes ‘equity’ over boring old equality of opportunity, banning fracking, decriminalising illegal immigration, providing free health care to illegals and eliminating ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). We’ll be expected to politely overlook that anyone who dons a different set of beliefs like putting on a new dress never had real convictions to begin with. In her own words ‘what can be, unburdened by what has been’, Kamala Harris will be who they tell you she is."
Someone make a tally from the people they target, of how many of them are in power, and how many are out of power. That will tell you if they are protecting the constitution, or something else. In fact, it better be highly biased towards targeting the people in power, as they are the biggest risks.
the plague chronicle now (aus gegebenem anlass) has a comment policy. woohoo etc.
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/comment-policy
(this pinned comment is all the advertisement the policy is ever going to get, so if you disagree with anything in there or have criticisms please let me know here.)
I experienced the Covid Panic in the United States of America. On the West Coast, Hawaii, and a few other states, the Manzanar camps for issei, including those who had gained legal citizenship, and culpably for nissei, have as much prominence in school-child history lessons as does slavery and segregation. In the midwest, it's the Trail of Tears, and broken treaties with the Amerindian tribes and nations instead.
Had it not been so terrible, it would have been funny: seeing friends and colleagues, including one ex-Marine*, go all-in on violating the civil rights of citizens to bodily autonomy. From summoning police to remove people who had refused the experimental modified RNA genetic therapy drug, to arresting a man and his toddler from an empty public park, to cheering on the creation of "covid camps" for the insufficiently compliant... It was eye-opening and funny.
I know, I know, you are asking "what is the funny part?" The funny part is these are the self-same Democrats who were most loudly vocal in their excoriation of Manzanar, internments, segregation, and abuse of Nissei civil rights during the WW2 crisis; these friends who believed themselves vastly superior to the deplorables who participated, or were just silent, in early 2020 regarding what they called "Asian Hate".
Yes! They proved that they would, in fact, be the ones volunteering to shove the nissei onto animal-transport trains or act as prison guards for the camps.
Funny old world, isn't it?
Putting it here, since I just read your comments policy. Isn't it interesting how well protectors of the right to freedom of speech and expression understand the need to comprehensively silence the speech that troubles them? We get them here in the U.S. Often, hilariously, from the GDR. I watched an interview 10 years ago with a bright young thing explaining so earnestly why the GDR had even free-er speech than the U.S.! She's probably working in one of your ministries now.
*Marines swear an oath to God that they will uphold and defend the constitution of the U.S. against all enemies foreign and domestic. So yes: Ex.
**Not the Bureau of Land Management, which also has issues, boy howdy.
I find it amusing that any German would claim more speech rights than in the US. Sure buddy. Why don't you start up a certain political party that was active during the 1930s until 1945, display their symbols, or publish their literature? And then tell me how much freedom of the press or speech you have in Germany.
"The funny part is these are the self-same Democrats who were most loudly vocal in their excoriation of Manzanar, internments, segregation, and abuse of Nissei civil rights during the WW2 crisis"
The funnier part is that these same Democrats have conveniently repressed their memories that the internment of the Asians was committed by a Democrat administration; the institution of Negro slavery was propagated by Democrat states; that the (re)segregation of the US government service and Armed Forces prior to WWI was the brainchild policy of a Democrat president; and that Jim Crow was the law of exclusively Democrat-controlled legislatures. They wail that the Republican Party -- the party of Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves -- is actually the racist party. They rant on about "Our Democracy," but just engineered a successful coup against an elected president and the nomination of a replacement candidate without a single citizen vote being cast. It is a political party inspired by the Bizarro World, by way of the Twilight Zone.
It's stupid you have to do this...yet you must or your board will be monopolized...I've seen that happen on other authors stacks.
i wrote this policy like six months ago in response to a few obnoxious trends, finally published it today after some guy got mad that i banned him
I’ve been pretty lucky, my commentariat is generally well-behaved, thoughtful and literate, so I haven’t had to do much moderation.
Moderation is necessary, however, because it only takes one or two persistent bad actors to ruin an entire discussion thread. Either you set and enforce some basic rules – and yes, ban people when appropriate – or other people will set and enforce their own rules and make discussing things impossible. Strictly speaking, this may be “censorship,” but if that’s the case then we must remember that there’s no “no-censorship” option. In a totally unmoderated comment section, dominated by spam and trolls, other forces get to shout down useful contributors and impose their own kind of “censorship.”
But, I am not sure banning commenters on a blog really counts as “censorship.” For me, this really depends on the size of the platform. If eugyppius comment threads were the premier discussion forum on the internet, with hundreds of millions of contributors, then being banned would significantly limit one’s ability to freely express himself. I am microscopic compared to that; a ban from my comment threads doesn’t meaningfully impact anybody’s freedom of expression, as they’re free to comment elsewhere, write their own blog, shoot angry Notes at me, etc.
Of course. Censorship in a technical sense is always required. To take an analogy from St. Thomas on political freedom, it is good for men to have room for wide and open debate and freedom of choice, being in their natures and being conducive to finding the truth, but not where it results in a breach of peace or serves only vices. We are given freedom so we can do the right thing, so to speak.
There are lots of "comments" that aren't really comments in the proper sense. They don't contribute to any dialogue. They may be trolling, spam, long-winded unreadable nonsense, and so on. I see no issue with "censoring" such things. We have to have standards.
Often people misidentify our political problem of censoring speech as being based in the idea of censorship being wrong or immoral. No, the problem arises because it's imposed by a monopoly state or its many "private" govermentalities. A good society (preferably Hoppean) will always have varying levels of censorship, adjusted for time/place and circumstance, as imposed by fathers and adults using good sense and with community feedback and incentives in place.
Eugyppius is entirely within his rights to moderate HIS forum. He "owns" it and sets the rules. He's probably under various legal constraints to, that would vary by nation. For example, here in the USA we have greater freedom of speech than many nations. There are certain topics (which I won't mention specifically, lest I draw the attention of the authorities*) that Americans are free to discuss or publish, that would get you fined or jailed in Germany and quite a few other nations these days. It's worth mentioning that even here in the US, the speaker of unapproved thought likely would end up (as appropriate) banned from all social media, fired from his job or demoted at the least, his books disappeared off Amazon, have his banking services discontinued, or in some cases be persecuted by government agencies to the point of bankruptcy even though he or his corporation had not been accused of any crime. But at least he won't end up in a prison cell.
*This is supposedly a Chinese curse: “May you come to the attention of the authorities.” Much like the more general “May you live in interesting times.” Surely the latter is already true for most of us, and to the best of my knowledge I haven’t pissed off any Chinese and you probably haven’t either.
You should include my all-time favorite condition:
"Reading or discussing the Terms of Use is explicitly forbidden by the Terms of Use."
Rule Number 5 is unbelievable to me. Take care.
*Raises glass from Sweden*
Point 5, don't we all know it!
As I sometimes point out, whenever I comment and mention bad things here (bad due to policy, politics and such, example below), I am technically committing a crime that could land me in prison.
Naturally, mentioning that law to foreigners is breaking that law. . .
Example: our agency for civil preparedness today announced their latest advice for how to deal with a supply/goods crisis, namely food: "Go into the forests and forage".
Not kidding.
What? That's not good government but we're all arriving at this conclusion: government isn't good and not worth the cost.
And I thought Germany (DDR) was bad
"Government is a gang, but not merely as meritorious as a private gang because it claims legal legitimacy. It pillages and uses violence but under the cover of law, and seeks legitimacy not through competition but through the myth of the social contract."
- Jeffrey Tucker
We are at a stage in history where The Law itself has become an instrument of illegality...AGAIN.
It always helps when they can change and manipulate the law and the narrative at will to suit themselves.
I won't live that long, but I wonder what history books (or files) will say 100 years from now of what we live through. We know the books now are almost completely filled with lies...
I read a completely fabricated account of a certain 'first nation' that alleged to have occupied an area forever according to how their history story telling works. But we know this tribe was from the US and moved into the area in the 19th Century because there are accounts of them arriving in history books, probably the same ones libraries and schools are throwing out. This "alternative knowing" was the basis of a land claim, suddenly it was 'unceded' territory. However my own ancestors from Ireland lived there and until recently you could find gravestones with their names/dates and others from the small community together with foundations of their homesteads from the 18th century. That was ignored, but the land claim and fabricated history of the first natoin has found its way to wikipedia and now gov. canada has accepted this narrative as truth and offered the land to this tribe for whatever reason. So history is being re-written, correct.
Many of the past books are far more truthful than books now. Anything before the 20th century had a much wider shared social reality it had to go through in order to lie. Now people are in their isolated social bubbles and will believe anything.
Funny, there many books that I'd like to rid myself of because they take up space. I will not do that now after experiencing the last decade and all the joy has wrought.
Keep them, in 100 years they will be a good resource to learn why things went so wrong in our generation.
Keep the books. If nothing else, use them as foot stools ! I regret not having brought all of mine over when I still could !
That is one thing that trudeau is very good at
We are seeing it here in Australia too.
Otherwise beautiful countries to live in except the population growth mayhem, in urban centres but also their recreational practices. They are practising some truly disgusting approaches to garbage and sewage management in pristine recreational areas.
Just had my Instagram account suspended for 60 days for posting a comment about if we confiscated all the wealth of all the billionaires in the United States we could fund the country for a about 8 months and they said I didn't have enough context ( according to the independent "fact checkers") so my account is suspended for 60 days. Probably a little too close to the truth for them to be able to tolerate.
Politicians speak daily on social media of confiscating everyone's wealth. Meta (run by politicians and the IC) doesn't have a problem with that.
Last week Instagram temporarily banned me from "liking" any more posts because I'd hearted too many in some unspecified time period. I've never been penalized for being *too positive* before.
I had a similar ban on twitter. Tell me we aren’t being watched. Ha.
Everyone is being continually surveilled. Many people are targeted, yet are unaware of this reality. TargetedJustice.com/
Probably because you were of by a factor of four. I saw the study and the country could only be funded for 8 weeks.
But, it gets worse. If all their wealth were to be confiscated, the following year, they would be paying what for taxes? So confiscation all their wealth could only be done...............once.
That tells you who the suspenders are working for.
"It always helps when they can change and manipulate the law and the narrative at will to suit themselves."
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
--THOMAS JEFFERSON
And the definitions of words.
Sounds like a line from Atlas Shrugged
Right? Here let me wet your beak. I think Rand nails it with this one.
"When you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice-You may know that your society is doomed."
~ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Atlas Shrugged is set in a depressingly realistic world, if one neglects a few fantasy elements:
(1) Strip out the science fiction technology. There are no invisibility screens, miracle alloys or free power sources, to name but three.
(2) [Most important] In the real world, not all evil people are stupid and incompetent toadies. The good don't have super-human intelligence or other powers.
Unfortunately, without the science fiction, Atlas Shrugged doesn't work. Unless the productive libertarians can hide themselves in a Galt's Gulch where they literally cannot be found, and control their secret by invitation only, the human locusts will simply attack and reduce them same as they did in the outer world. Which brings up the problem of how to raise families (naturally-rebellious children who will therefore be good little Marxists) inside the enclave without losing your entire opsec.
The state has always been the criminal gang that claims a monopoly of force, because it is anointed by God, or Democracy, or whatever. True law exists independent of the state; it is a spontaneous expression of society. What we have today is legislation, not Law. And of course it serves the interests of the rulers, not the people.
It always has been, but the post-war vigilance of the citizens kept it at bay, plus the rising economy meant those in power didn't have to grab as much and could let some trinkets to the peasants. Now it's another story...
Yes, the but the people who are truly in power are invisible. They are not politicians. Politicians simply do their bidding, because of bribes, extortions, blackmail and threats. All three branches of government are subject to the hidden powers.
Germany makes me more depressed than my own fucked country, the US.
Ireland is running a close second IMO, both are jackbooting themselves into totalitarian nightmares. UK too. It’s all looking particularly ugly for regular people everywhere.
…Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Austria,…
No shit, all western culture countries. Slowly, then all at once.
Thar's the plan
Don't forget the US.
mentioned in the OP
Holmes: "I sense a pattern here Watson."
Watson: "No shit Sherlock."
...France, China, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, Russia...
The Truckers Convoy in Canada was one of the boldest acts of defiance to tyranny during the C19 scam. Looking forward to watching the full movie.
Not just Ireland. The world has been divided into happily asleep zombies (how I've unsuccessfully tried to nudge some of them) and the rest of us.
I am beginning to think that the zombies are meant when Schwab says, you will own nothing and be happy. They own no brain cells and live on happily ever after, without even noticing that the carpet has been pulled from under their feet
Except Schwab never said it.It was an Austrian politician who said it and the WEF then allowed his essay on their web site..
Doesn't matter, he's pushing for it anyway
it kind of became their motto, though. I remember it was a woman, I think from the young leaders, who wrote an essay with that sentence in it.
Schwab is as wiley and discrete as certain adherents of a certain ideology who were much concerned with finally ending what they perceived as a chronic, difficult problem
Many are happy with being a zombie because they don't see any of the changes happening to only "bad guys" will impact THEM. They do not realize that they are in a process that will result in them being classified as one of the 'bad guys'. It's not until people feel the pain that they get they are under attack. Stupid. I know too many of them
I hope that the France Olympic Opening Ceremony has woken the young people out of their slumber.
Unfortunately, post war Germany is still a satellite of the Colonies.
The United States saved from execution by the Nuremburg tribunals, and imported to the US, all the important Nazi scientists, under a program known as Operation Paperclip. Those Nazi scientists developed, while in the United States, after WWII, the directed energy weapons systems and the other satanic technology which have made today's world a torture chamber for millions of innocent people.
Please study this website for details: TargetedJustice.com/
The issue of mass immigration and displacement of the native population has become so incendiary that in Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics are marching together in protest against it...
Here in Canada, people whose temporary student visas have expired are protesting even though they are 50-year-old male head of families —- its the injustice of not being given work permits.
Time to kick them out before there is nothing left of Canada and it lokks like the shithole Brampton everywhere.
Everything you described is in keeping with the following excerpt from a 1950's era textbook wherein half a page was devoted to how to overthrow a democracy.
I am a student of Law whose age is 85. My first year of college was 68
years ago. One class I took was political science. A half page of my
textbook essentially outlined a few steps to overturn a democracy.
1. Divide the nation philosophically.
2. Forment racial strife.
3. Cause distrust of police authority.
4. Swarm the Nation’s borders indiscriminately and unconstitutionally.
5. Engender the military strength to weaken it.
6. Overburden citizens with more unfair taxation.
7. Encourage civil rioting and discourage accountability for all crime.
8. Control all balloting.
9. Control all media.
What was printed in 1954 as a possible diabolic nightmare has become
an emerging reality. I hope that Americans will unite enough to pen a good finish.
Go dwelling.
Keith M. Alber
California
Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Winston Churchill, 1948.
Whilst I agree with the point you are making, let me say this:
Churchill is a truly terrible person to cite, and I don't say that for any "woke" reasons. He was wholly owned by bankers, did their warmongering bidding in all things, and made the deals which enriched the U.S. and crippled Britain. He was the Boris Johnson of his time, let that parallel truly sink in.
Hear, hear. He also wanted to drop anthrax on the Germans and was drunk every day, all day. I abhor the Churchill cult.
Do you mean Churchill's history . ? Churchill said after the war .'' History will be kind to me ,for I will be writing it . History means HIS story
Although Churchill did not originate the phrase my understanding is he used the phrase. I posted the original comment that I saw in another substack article in 2022 complete with the Churchill reference. I checked the steps to overturn a democracy and the fact checkers agree it is a legitimate story. I have not yet found the textbook name that the excerpt came from.
What would history look like if Hitler had won the war ,and he would have been writing it .? Any thought's on that ?
What exactly is your point?
My point is ,that the winner always writes history after a conflict
True enough.
Emerging? It’s already here.
And the name of the secret textbook from 1954 was...???
As noted above I have not found a reference to the textbook yet. I still look for it when time and inclination permit. I have seen a photocopy published of the page in question but no details on the book title and author.
I’m just marveling at how the article and police agree, he was arrested to stop him in advance of committing a crime. What crime is that? Speaking? How do they know in advance? This is genuinely the thought police. will this get appealed? You can arrest absolutely anybody using this premise.
they could potentially use this authority to stop people from voting, to stop entire parties from holding political rallies, to force shop-owners out of business. it's totally crazy.
It is not "crazy." It is the "plan."
concur
AND ITS TOTALLY REAL!
we're living it.
It’s not crazy. Call it what it is: it’s evil.
Beat me to it!
eugyppius, it resembles the National Socialism of the 1930s, does it not? So I disagree with your description of 'crazy'. Not so; we've seen this before, and it did not end well. There were logical and inevitable reasons why Germany ended up as a ruined wasteland in May 1945. So, not crazy, and that makes it worse.
We thought you knew...........
Orwell's thought crime, now manifest.
“Minority Report” in action.
We already have 'pre-crime' laws all over the shop. You can be prosecuted if you innocently carry the wrong sort of knife, even if it's in your bag. Yes, there is a law that states what sort of knife you are permitted to carry, and what is illegal, unless you have 'good reason'. However, the point is that you do not have to have threatened or even harmed someone, so innocent people can be criminalised, whilst genuine criminals simply ignore the law anyway.
This recent preventative speech/presence ban is merely an extension of the same principle. Attack the easy (and often artificial) targets, and ignore the real problem as it's actually difficult to deal with.
sounds like some of the 2A-infringing laws in the US
And it appears that a sizable portion of the German population (half?) are perfectly fine with their government arresting people for crimes they *might* commit? How do those people convince themselves that they’re “the good guys”?
Despite all the noise, hysteria and bullshit surrounding Sellner, I am yet to find a single 'outrageous' public utterance authored by him.
It reminds me of JK Rowling, who is forever accused of 'transphobia' and the omnipresent spectre of 'hate', but for which no evidence can be presented.
Post-war Germany put its full energies into creating a perfect, liberal society of Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit, but has collapsed in on itself under the weight on contradictory ideological shibboleths.
Schade, as they say.
I reluctantly disagree with some of Sellner's tactics, but his rhetoric is so relentlessly moderate they have to make up stories about him to stir up all this outrage.
Isn't that the point? They persecute even the mildly discontented . Threatening the more forceful voices with fear of ever more draconian measures.
If the German people were sane, and not brainwashed and pathologically self-loathing, Seller would be nothing notable because he would represent the common-sense democratic majority, and there wouldn't be multiple millions of people in your country brought there by dictatorial whim and enforced by tyrannical order.
The Rowling reference is spot on. For those in the "protected classes," it is never enough to just be friendly and unbiased toward them. They demand you be virulently anti-everything that they label as oppressing them, even if that is yourself.
I think what we have failed to understand is how all this is perfectly normal. In every generation governments whip up hysterias against the unregenerate individual/disfavored political views. Some of the more traditionalists here ought to read MartyrMade's descriptions of what was done to believing professing Christians by the Spanish Inquisition that wasn't entirely sure if every little corner of their souls was approvedly pure.
What always does surprise me is the astonishing moral and physical courage of a few people in every generation who endure things that others in their place would not endure, because those few have an integrity that no human language can really explicate.
In what era of human history has anyone ever been allowed to speak absolutely freely and truly of their views?
We just never learn that the truly abnormal is to have guts and stick to them.
What appears to be happening, is a reversion on the part of the state to a historical repressive norm, while everybody simultaneously pretends this isn't happening and continues to employ the legal forms and vocabulary of a prior anomalous era – where peace, prosperity and a kind of consensus society allowed different norms to prevail for a little while.
There's always only a brief moment in any civilization when ordinary people are able to master the worst of human nature and pull something true and beautiful and of enduring value out of themselves that is a rebuke to what we usually do.
Despite the idiotic clumsiness of what JD Vance recently said, it happens to be true that to become a parent is the test of any person's capacities; those who meet that test, who are able to master themselves during a toddler's tantrums, rather than rolling right down in the mud with their child, is a maturing experience that nothing else is comparable to. Very few people will ever be tested on a battlefield or in surreptitious resistance movements, so skipping the experience of raising a child well condemns people to remain always somewhat immature themselves.
And here we are.
The trick is to repress different things than in the past, and so people don't notice.
"... everybody simultaneously pretends this isn't happening ..." This is what the majority of the weak GOP in the U.S. does. Sadly, many aren't even pretending; they actually don't see it.
There is nothing new under the sun.
There is a reason for cliches.
Such a powerful comment. Thank you SCA.
The Fellowship of SubstackLand where so many of us have been fortunate to find enough backyards to relievedly plunk our lawn chairs down in and have actual exchange of ideas.
These things begin to make more sense if you substitute "the 1%" any time you use the word "democracy".
I agree that substituting “the 1%” makes more sense than “democracy”, but the problem is that it’s not really about “the 1%”, even though it looks that way.
Almost every western country that is tightening the screws on its population currently is controlled by a left-wing, globalist government.
The people that they are oppressing are primarily socially conservative or even somewhat libertarian leaning, and who are opposed to mass 3rd world immigration into their respective countries. And they mostly support individual rights as opposed to government coercion.
Instead of saving “our democracy “, what these oppressive governments are really trying to save is their social(ist) agenda and their hold on power.
Here is Margaret Thatcher's (former PM of Great Britain) take on Socialism. "You can vote in Socialism but you have to SHOOT your way out!"
Entirely true. Only socialist states have to build walls to keep their own populations imprisioned and controlled. Suspension of freedom to travel is usually the very first element suppressed by socialism, right before the suppression of freedom of speech and state control of all forms of mass media.
Hayek in his famous "The Road to Serfdom" (1944) writes about an insurmountable problem of socialist* policies: While the ends might be highly desirable (e.g. abolish hunger, illness, unemployment, whatever) the means, necessary steps to actually achieve those goals (are they even achievable?) would be, or at least should be, repellent to anyone who claims to value the rights of the individual.
*Note there are various “flavors” of socialism. For example, 1970s Sweden and Stalin's Soviet Union both had many elements of "socialism" but most people would have a marked preference for the former over the latter!
I think it’s a mistake to blame the problem on mere socialism. Underneath is the universal human desire to dominate and control, whatever the ideological excuse. No matter what the system calls itself, eventually the power-hungry scum gain full control and seek to destroy all possible opposition.
I agree that the desire is universal but socialism usually seems to attract and reward the worst of the worst.
I think that’s because the ideology itself is based on class envy and theft(redistribution of wealth), has little respect for individual liberty, and it also generally denigrates religion.
People who acquire the power to take stuff from one group and give it to others (after they get their cut), with no religious scruples, tend to lack a natural empathy towards their victims.
And that is why (with the possible exception of a few Nordic countries) socialism has been a disaster wherever it’s been tried……and it’s left a death toll in the hundreds of millions .
No other ideology even comes close….
Hayek ("The Road to Serfdom") emphasizes the role of the individual citizen vs. the managerial state. This is a feature in any government, not just “socialist.” It’s a question of degree, of tradeoffs: What freedoms does the individual have? What powers does the bureaucrat, the state planner, have? For example: In a relatively “free” society, a citizen might work at nearly any type of job, but the offering of that job is basically a private agreement between an employer and the worker. It's NOT the government's problem if he can't find work; he has no "right" to a specific job, in fact, to any job at all. In a planned economy, the Ministry of Labor will assign you a job and you will take it “or else.” It’s wasn’t only Communist nations that did that either. The UK AFTER WW II flirted extensively with socialism; they briefly had a law that would have allowed the government to assign nearly anyone to any job, on pains of imprisonment if they refused.
Your example of the postwar UK flirting “extensively with socialism “, even imposing a law assigning jobs on pain of imprisonment is further evidence that socialism itself is a much more invasive and totalitarian form of government than any other.
You are correct that it’s a trade off, but socialism requires much more force (or the threat of force) than other forms of government in order for it to “work “.
People don’t voluntarily give up their stuff, it has to be taken from them….and that requires force.
"socialism itself is a much more invasive and totalitarian form of government than any other."
...Second Law of Thermodynamics.
...You can't keep locusts out, and if you move they just follow you.
Socialism is pervasive because it is a low energy state, high entropy.
Entrepreneurship is high energy -- human progress by reversing (battling) entropy.
Living by putting your hands in each others' pockets is passive, high entropy.
Musk hustles, he doesn't sit back on his ass and eat bonbons.
La'Quishraniqua? Maybe not so much.
The productive create their own value and wealth; the parasites need to skim some of it off them.
Socialism shows up everywhere, because it's the system the "gypsies, tramps, and thieves" need to survive. And they always have their own political party, no matter where you go, same as the medieval societies never lacked for beggars both real and fake.
More like the .1% who control the world’s finances
There are plenty of conservative libertarians in the 1% who don't believe in this authoritarian stuff.
The vast majority of plain old conservatives don’t believe in this authoritarian stuff.
The current trend towards authoritarianism, at least in the US, is a globalist/leftist phenomenon (which used to be called “international socialism “).
There are big corporations, media, and other private sector organizations involved, but they are run by people with the same agenda.
75./542. (Maimonides' list) Ex. 23:2 - Decide by majority in case of disagreement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments
The "majority" of this perversion is of the Sanhedrin. (Assembly of the 1%, or fewer.)
The only thing that can save democracy at this point in the great and very democratic state of Germany is to eliminate the other political parties, let the state exert full control - over information, activities of citizens, and corporations - and, centralize all power, preferably in a single individual who can act as a trustee with full support of the government to direct the democracy according to its own best interest. Oh, and it would be very democratic to put CJ Hopkins in jail for his gross misunderstanding of democracy.
And after they centralize power in a single individual to save democracy, maybe they should call him “The Leader “
Oh wait….
Dark days...Hitler abolished the mandatory vaccination laws, and thought it should be a matter of personal choice...He'd be arrested today as a dangerous freedom fighter....
A broken clock is right twice a day…..
“ All they need to do is claim these individuals have the potential to commit a criminal offence. They don’t need to have a good reason; they can just show up at your pub or your apartment and demand that you leave.”
Also known as, “the Thought Police”.
Collectivist totalitarians in "democratic" clothing.
Watch What They Do, Not What They Say!
The actions of these so-called protectors of democracy are far more reminiscent of the Third Reich than anything that AfD and others on the political right have done or said.
I hope and pray that overplaying their hand so often will wake the good people of Germany up.
'Watch What They Do, Not What They Say!'
This is an important concept which I try to follow.
It's an interesting exercise to apply to both Trump and Biden*, but can I get my liberal friends to consider it? It's difficult. They do fall strangely mute when I point out the authoritarianism of things like vaccine mandates.
* Not enough RECENT data points yet for Harris on either the Do or Say fronts. She appears to be running solely on identity politics. Glenn Greenwald and Lee Fang pointed out that her campaign website does not have a single policy statement, which apparently is SOP in California politics.
There’s plenty of data points on Harris, only the state “sponsored” US media suppress most of it… Peter Schweizer covered her in his 2020 book “Profiles in Corruption” - not just her Willie Brown phase, but her indebtedness to unions and her corruption as CA AG, when she did not recuse herself from cases with involvement by her husband’s law firm. As far as authoritarianism is concerned she was recorded gloating about her efforts to incarcerate parents with truant children. While one might not disagree that truancy is undesirable there is something disturbing about Harris’ shallow delight at her own power when CA AG…
I admit to not being interested enough to look into her very deeply. She appears to be one of those politicians who goes whither the wind blows.
And blows where the...oh never mind 😏
You understand her perfectly
If what she says ever truly gets widespread attention, she’s toast!
I watched a video this morning where she was explaining cloud storage is above us as she motioned towards the sky and said it’s not physical storage.😂
Of course it's physical storage, but as a computer consultant I find it very helpful to use the storage-in-the-sky metaphor when attempting to explain to the technically unsophisticated how things work. Before the "cloud" metaphor was invented, I would try to explain about servers and people's eyes would cross.
With your Harris example, unfortunately, she probably wasn't speaking metaphorically 😐
As another computer consultant I find the exact opposite -- the less people think of it as "magic", the fewer surprises they will suffer. I prefer the message on a T-shirt I bought online from someone I now forget:
"There's no 'Cloud' -- it's just someone else's computer"
I'm sure I bought it online, so maybe a web search will turn it up?
I don't disagree in the least and I covet that T-shirt. I do make a point to tell people the cloud thing is just a metaphor.
"Before the "cloud" metaphor was invented, I would try to explain about servers and people's eyes would cross."
I just told people it's another place that holds your data for you, same as the bank holds your money.
Harris has data points sufficient to create a Pointillist style masterpiece. A Pointilist Portrait of Dorian Grey, as it were...
Harris is a puppet which is why she was "Chosen" to succeed Biden. It would be an interesting research project to figure out what the Deep State might have on her as blackmail.
Why would they need blackmail? She has not remotely got any of the talents, abilities, or experience to fulfill her recent positions, so why would "they" need anything more than "remember you did nothing to get where you are today; we can unmake you as quickly as we made you"?
And they JUST showed her how quickly it can be done.
A very good point.
She said she didn't disagree with a single thing Biden did, so I'll allow that as evidence.
I'm becoming a fan of Lionel Shriver's acerbic pen. She's written article titled "Will the real Kamala Harris please stand up?" https://archive.li/49yxO.
"The next do-over will erase Harris’s political record. She’ll be transformed from the formerly second-most left-wing member of the Senate to a safe, sensible, law-and-order centrist. Magically, she’ll never have advocated defunding the police, abolishing private health insurance, fundraising bail for violent Antifa rioters, elevating anti-meritocratic equal-outcomes ‘equity’ over boring old equality of opportunity, banning fracking, decriminalising illegal immigration, providing free health care to illegals and eliminating ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). We’ll be expected to politely overlook that anyone who dons a different set of beliefs like putting on a new dress never had real convictions to begin with. In her own words ‘what can be, unburdened by what has been’, Kamala Harris will be who they tell you she is."
They need courage, not caffeine. It's not that they are asleep, it's that so many are wilfully blind.
And, unfortunately, the willfully blind have been around for a very long time!
Jeremiah 5:21
“Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:”
King James Version (KJV)
the humane German govt only does this because these people are nazis and Holocaust deniers and anti-vaxxers, etc....etc etc
“The Federal Protectors of the Constitution”
😱
THE SINGLE MOST ORWELLIAN organization ever!!!!
Every time I read that name it makes me want to laugh.
Someone make a tally from the people they target, of how many of them are in power, and how many are out of power. That will tell you if they are protecting the constitution, or something else. In fact, it better be highly biased towards targeting the people in power, as they are the biggest risks.